Here Say is a project in community storytelling. We travel to a new place each week and ask people to share true stories about things we all experience: love, family, learning and more. To see where we've been, check out our interactive map. And to hear your favorite stories from this season, you can find our free podcast on itunes.
Nursing student Jessica LaRose told us about caring for her patients.
"You have four to six patients at a time, so whenever you’re taking care of people in a healthcare setting you definitely have to use your time wisely and, like, prioritize who you are going to be explaining to the patients: "yes you are my priority right now but also these people are too.' I think that as a nurse you have to have the patience to kind of be able to tell them and explain it to them so they understand too. That you really are working your butt off that you’re trying as hard as you can."
Harold Lewis, a former car salesman, says that getting people into the cars they want at a price they can pay requires patience.
"They pick out something or they make a decision that they think they want to be in a certain price range, and then trying to explain to them what fits what doesn’t fit and trying to be fair with them based on their situation. Sometimes we have a lot of people who have champagne tastes and soda pop budgets – they can’t even afford the beer, but they want the nicest car on the lot. You’ve got to work with them and explain why they can’t have it, and some people don’t understand. You’ve got to have patience to explain to them, and try to get through to them that you’re trying to help them. Sometimes they listen, and sometimes they don’t. You’ve got to have patience any time you deal with people. Period."
Entomology student Natalie Diesel learned patience is caring for tiny, very fragile exhibits.
"Whenever I’m working in the collection I’m kind of updating and relabeling things and rearranging them, so I’m working with specimens that are over a hundred years old and they’re really really fragile. So if you aren’t patient and you’re just whipping around you break stuff really easily. So I’ve learned a lot of patience through that handling really small delicate things."
Dustin Prather remembers his grandmother as the most patient person in his family.
"The only one I can say in my family who really had any patience was my grandma. She’s an old school teacher – she’s old – she used to sit down on Saturdays and Sundays and read Bible verses with me. And she’s just a godsend on patience. Because I was a hellion, and rowdy, and she’s 83 years old and still she just read me my Bible verses and tried to help me with homework."
For more stories about patience, check out our interactive map here.